The present invention relates to a projector equipped with a lamp unit which has a lamp for image projection.
In the prior art, a projector is per se known which emits light from a lamp onto a image display device, thus projecting a image displayed by this image display device upon a screen.
Such a projector includes a lamp unit which contains a lamp for image projection, a projector main body (a device main body) which contains the lamp unit, and a projection lens which projects the light emitted from the lamp unit to the exterior of the projector main body.
On the other hand, a projector has been proposed as described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2002-244210.
However, with such prior art projectors, the lamp unit reaches an extremely high temperature due to emission of heat by the lamp. Due to this, the projector main body is subjected to thermal load by this heat emission. In particular, the thermal load upon the projector main body around the lamp unit is high.
Accordingly, the problem has arisen that the projector main body has difficulty in withstanding this thermal load, and may soften. Furthermore, there has been the problem that, in the worst case, the projector main body melts.
Moreover, the projector described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2002-244210 is equipped with a cooling device which cools the lamp. However, this cooling is in order to keep the temperature of the lamp constant. Due to this, with this projector disclosed in this Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2002-244210, the fact that the temperature of the lamp becomes high still does not change. Accordingly, with this projector disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2002-244210 as well, due to dissipation of heat from the lamp, sometimes softening or melting of the projector main body may take place, centered around the portion thereof which faces the lamp in the projector main body.
The objective of the present invention is to provide a projector with which softening or melting of the projector main body, due to emission of heat by the lamp, is prevented.